NZ 28th December

This was our second day in Queenstown, we'd meet these cool Canadians and started hangin out as a group. We went into town in the evening to go find some food and beer, all we found though was a street entertainer who threw a playing card onto the roof of a two story building. He was good.
Along the way was this funny Jap couple taking photos of each other with a toy sheep on their heads!?

NZ 27th Dec

Here's a few more pics from my last NZ entry. After we were woken up we drove for about half an hour and found a cool little spot to pull over and continue sleeping. I woke up before the others so i grabbed my setup and went walking in the near by lands, i ended up finding these really pink/purple flowers lining a creek surrounded by mountains.

Back online

Should be able to post from now on. If this post appears then we're in business.

What i wanted to do was update the blog while i was away in New Zealand so that i would have left a daily photographic visual diary for myself and anyone else to look at of my travels.

Other things have come along though. So, here's the deal, im goin to upload things that happen (Like Australia day) as they come along and in between throw in some photo's from my NZ travels. Deal.

Jake

Blog doesnt work right now sorry!

Cant upload any photos, sorry internet surfers.

Try again later on

cheers

NZ 27th December

We slept in Wanaka on the edge of a lake surrounded by mountains....ah the serenity! Not for long though, at 5am this big bearded man starts bangin on the car sayin its illegal to camp here and the the cops were on their way with a $500 fine in their hands. We bolted and drove through the Coronet Range until we lost the cops and found a sweet sleeping spot.

I woke up again at about 7.30am and wondered of with my camera and found this cool stream running through a little valley with all these crazy purple/pink flowering plants every where. Then when we had all woken we completed the drive and come out to th other side to this amazing view of the Queenstown region and its towering mountain ranges in all directions.

NZ 26th December

We decided to leave Greymouth and head south along the west coast, then cut through another mountain range (Which included Mt Cook, the highest peak in NZ) through to Queenstown hopefully. We only made it to Wanaka though. It was cloudy and rained all day long until the other side of the mountains. This meant we couldnt see Mt Cook or the Fox glaciers. During the coastal part of the drive we scoured every part of the coast to find some waves, luck was not on our side though. The drive into Wanaka is absolutley awesome, i'd do it every day if i could. Na not really.

Xmas Day in NZ

I was the first to wake again, we'd slept at the beach on the Cobden side of Greymouth. I went outside and it was kinda Eire, it was overcast and lots of blue light everywhere. The waves were small but clean, i didnt want to go out on my own so i waited for the others to rise. As the morning progress the swell and tide combined to produce some good looking waves. When we came in there was a father n son at the carpark, with the kid tryin out his new dirt bike from santa. We then went to Blaketown in the arvo and surfed the right wedge. It was then followed by two minute noodles, beers and a rainbow between the dividers. Good xmas.

NZ 24th December

We hung around Greymouth for a few days due to the fun waves that were hangin around. I was the first to wake in the van and to my surprise the township was under attack from a huge mist ball pushing theough the Dividers(2 mountains that split Greymouth into two smaller towns - Blaketown & Cobden).

There's also heaps of surf spots further north so we decided to drive the coastal road for about 3 hours north looking for waves and looking at the scenic views. We stopped at this place called Punakaiki, it has these rock formations that look like stacked pancakes. How classic!

NZ 23rd December

We slept along the Arthurs Pass road which is this road that cuts through a massive mountain range from the west coast to the east coast (N vice versa!). We had landed in the east at Christchurch but knew a swell was hitting the west coast. So we drove as far as we could and then decided to crash there. The photo's are showing how hectic the roads were and how cool mountains are! Once we woke we headed straight for a little coastal town called Greymouth which was home to a wedging right hander and a longer fatter left hander.

New Zealand 22nd December

I havent posted in a while due to the fact that ive been in New Zealand on a surf trip since the 22nd of Dec. Ive been taking heaps of photo's but just havent had any internet access, so posts could be few and far between. When i do get to post i'll try to do as much as i can. This set of photo's is from the 22nd December 2008 - We had landed in Christchurch grabbed our van and headed for the west coast via Arthurs Pass. Here's a few shots from my first few hours in NZ.